Disproportionate Love

Disproportionate love entails far more pain than it does that warm fuzzy feeling when your soul mate makes you feel like a song. We often focus on the light in a person’s soul rather than the behavior that they exhibit. I know for a fact; I am guilty of this exact occurrence. Often, I have put my own emotions on the back burner to create only seconds of superficial comfort for myself while giving others the greenlight to take full advantage of the love that I have to offer.

There has come a point in this healing process that I have realized just how disproportionate the love I have given has been in nearly all my friendships. Healing has taught me how to hold back from oversharing the details that truly no one cares about. The reason they don’t care being that I was merely a place holder. Often when people realize the kindness in your soul that is when they truly aim to take advantage of it. There is pain etched within your heart that they truly don’t have the empathetic capacity to see. The truth is people often aren’t as great a person as they would think, myself included. We all have room to grow though, it just takes a lot of time that a lot of people aren’t willing to put in.

Guaranteeing that someone loves and understands you isn’t as impossible as you may believe. We are the ones standing in the way. When we have a picture of a past version of someone we love or even a version we have created in our own minds, it clouds our perspective on what their behavior truly means.

I've come to understand a lot about the people that I used to share my life and love with. Whether these relationships were romantic or platonic in nature, I have always overplayed my part in order to feel some form of warmth. There is a saying by African Proverb that reads, "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth". Sadly, that is what I had to do. Metaphorically of course.

There came a point when it didn't feel good to make everyone else smile only to be soaked in tears at the end of the night. The love that I once felt so purely was suffocating under a dark cloud of people pleasing, anxiety, and avoidant/anxious attachments. The common theme was my presence.

I didn't have to be surrounded by people who showed no regard for my happiness. There weren't weights on my ankles or even a jail cell keeping me in place. Essentially, I was forming my own prison. Disproportionate love has now changed my life in ways that I won't deny that I am truly terrified of but it is the gift of life that allows me to realize the ways in which I went wrong in order to continue to flourish.

Though I still make judgment calls against my discernment, I give myself grace for the lessons I continue to teach myself through this healing journey. We aren't perfect by any means. None of us. So, when we allow ourselves self-forgiveness we can finally begin to digest and rectify the patterns we have adopted in life,

Recurrent disproportionate love is a curse. When we set ourselves up for the downfall that is to come it only aides as an example to others what we will tolerate even if it means throwing ourselves on the line. It is time you sit down and reflect on the way you've been loved by the people in your life? Does it make you happy? Will you be happy in a year from now? Does their presence give you negative physiological responses even when your heart is encased with pure love?

Sometimes love truly isn't enough...so take that love back and give it to yourself.